Babel
' |image= |series= |production=40511-405 |producer(s)= |story=Sally Caves Ira Steven Behr |script=Michael McGreevey Naren Shankar |director=Paul Lynch |imdbref=tt0708501 |guests=Jack Kehler as Captain Jaheel, Matthew Faison as Surmak Ren, Ann Gillespie as Nurse Jabara, Geraldine Farrell as Galis Blin, Bo Zenga as Asoth, Kathleen Wirt and Lee Brooks as Aphasia Victims, Richard Ryder as Bajoran Deputy, Frank Novak as Businessman, Todd Feder as Federation Male, Mark Allen Shepherd as Morn |previous_production=Past Prologue |next_production=Captive Pursuit |episode= DS9 S01E04 |airdate=24 January 1993 |previous_release=A Man Alone |next_release=Captive Pursuit |story_date(s)=46423.7 (2369) |previous_story= Ship in a Bottle A Man Alone |next_story= Aquiel Ship in a Bottle }} =Summary= An overworked Chief O'Brien is attempting to repair numerous malfunctions throughout the station, including most of the station's replicators. The pressure is only escalated when Captain Jaheel approaches O'Brien regarding his overdue repairs and perishable cargo, and Quark badgers him about the replicators in his bar. After reassuring the irate Jaheel (and Quark), O'Brien returns to his repairs, but unknowingly activates a device that was placed in one of the replicators. Shortly afterwards, O'Brien begins showing signs of aphasia — he becomes unable to speak coherently, or comprehend spoken language. At first, Doctor Bashir is not sure why O'Brien suddenly became aphasic. Tests showed no physiological causes, but when Lt. Dax suddenly becomes aphasic right before his eyes, he soon realizes that they are dealing with a virus that only mimics aphasia. He also determines that the virus is in the food that had come from command level replicators, but that the other replicators aren't producing contaminated food. People all over the station are showing signs of infection as well. The station is put under quarantine to keep the virus from spreading. Quark now seems to be doing very well -- his replicators appear to be working fine. Odo is suspicious, however, and soon discovers that Quark was producing food using a functional replicator in an abandoned set of crew quarters on the command level. The result was that the contaminated food was spread all over the station. As the virus spreads, Bashir discovers that the virus has mutated to become airborne. It also caused a dangerous high fever in its victims, which might kill them. Kira soon finds a module in the last replicator O'Brien had worked on; taking it to Bashir, he discovers that it wrote the aphasia virus directly into the molecular pattern of any food being replicated, therefore bypassing the biofilers that are used to screen out infectious agents. Bashir reveals that the Bajoran underground placed the module in the replicator 18 years prior, and that the virus was engineered by a Bajoran terrorist during the time of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. Unfortunately, the doctor (Dekon Elig) who created the virus had died while in a Cardassian prison. One of Dekon's fellow resistance fighters, Surmak Ren - now the administrator at a Bajoran hospital - had witnessed Dekon's death; Kira believes Dr. Surmak may have knowledge of the virus, so she decides to go get him. At first, Sisko refuses to allow Kira to leave (citing the risk of an uncontrolled epidemic), but then Odo recommends to Sisko that she goes because she is "all we have", and may soon be the only person on the station that's still able to communicate. Kira links with a computer in Dr. Surmak's office and transports him to the runabout that she is piloting. Initially, Surmak refuses to help, but relents when Kira reveals that by transporting him to the runabout, Surmak is also infected with the aphasia virus. Meanwhile, virtually the entire crew is incapacitated. Captain Jaheel, who was desperate to leave to avoid infection, tries to leave DS9 without clearance, and ruptures his power core in the process. To prevent the resulting antimatter explosion from destroying half the station, Odo and Quark eject the ship by explosively releasing the docking latches holding it to the station; the ship explodes at a safe distance, and Bashir is eventually able to create a vaccine for the aphasia virus. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Oversights # Quark not getting punished for releasing the virus by abusing the command replicators. This may be due to the enginerring staff not fixing Quark's replicators quickly enough. Nit Central # Hans Thielman on Thursday, February 25, 1999 - 2:08 pm: How would anyone be able to tell whether Morn was suffering from the aphasia virus? Mike Konczewski on Thursday, February 25, 1999 - 3:18 pm: The other characters on the station have mentioned many times that they have had interesting conversations with Morn (specifically, at the beginning of Who Mourns for Morn?). Of course, the gag is all these conversation happen off camera. I believe Quark has described Morn as a "chatterbox." S. Wong on Thursday, February 25, 1999 - 4:37 pm: I think Morn can speak, too, how else could he have asked Dax for a date. Chris Thomas on Friday, February 26, 1999 - 12:07 am: He does actually laugh in one episode, you can hear him. Phillip Culley on Friday, February 26, 1999 - 3:50 am: In Looking For Par'Mach...., when Worf pulls off his 'act of superiority' (Pushing Morn off his stool). we hear Morn give a little yell. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Wednesday, August 30, 2000 - 11:53 pm: How does the virus override the Universal Translator? In the Classic episode Metamorphosis, Spock says that the UT analyzes thoughts, not words, and translates into English. If the virus simply scrambles the part of their minds that deal with word choice, then the UT should be able to translate the speaker's meaning. Perhaps the virus disrupted the thought patterns of the victims. #Kira says, "Chasing after ghosts.", but in the NextGen episode The Next Phase, Ro Laren uses the Bajoran word for ghost, so why didn't Kira? (Or was this the first instance of the aphasia virus affecting Kira?) Perhaps she consiously decided to use a term familiar to her Non-Bajoran colleagues. # So why couldn't the mooring clamps be exploded by remote control? Uncle Dick on Wednesday, August 01, 2001 - 2:11 am: I believe Odo said something about "manual controls". Presumably, computer control to the area has been damaged and a manual release is required. #''goog on Thursday, August 30, 2001 - 6:06 pm:'' What gives Quark's lie away is when he says Rom fixed the replicators. Odo knows Rom is incapable of this. This became a changed premise later on when it was shown that Rom had a hidden talent for engineering and was quite good at it, surprising O'Brien with his speed and efficiency in "The Assignment."Mike Nuss on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 9:56 am: Rom's engineering skill isn't necessarily a nit, as it was a hidden talent that neither Odo and Quark knew about.Seniram Besides, this incident may have inspired Rom to develop his engineering skills in secret. #''John A. Lang on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 9:27 pm:'' WHY WHY WHY is O'Brien the one & only guy responsible for keeping things running on DS9. At least LaForge had an Engineering staff! Poor O'Brien has to go it alone! Not very smart! Josh M on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 1:39 pm: I'm sure he's got people. Just because we don't see them now doesn't mean they're not there. He has some in The Forsaken, In the Hands of the Prophets, and The Assignment among other episodes. Heck, Rom eventually joins the staff led by O'Brien. Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 2:01 pm: Why is he responsible? He's the friggin CHIEF of Operations. And he doesn't go it alone... we may not have seen them in this episode, but he has a staff, which we've seen repeatedly (as Josh M pointed out). But people turn to him for assistance because he's the person in charge. Rodney Hrvatin on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - 4:51 pm: My feeling is that his full compliment of staff haven't arrived yet and he has only a skeleton crew. It's still fairly early on since he started and obviously it's a HUGE station so he's going to need to be on his feet the whole time. #''John A. Lang on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 2:07 pm:'' HMM..... Cardassian Replicators can manufacture coffee from Earth (?) I guess all those U.F.O. sightings were true after all...we were visited by the Cardassians! Josh M on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 2:29 pm: I would assume that they would modify them to give human food, knowing the number of humans that work and live on the station. Mike Nuss on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 9:56 am: It's been established that Federation replicators can be programmed with molecular "recipes" for new dishes. One would assume that Cardassian replicators have similar functionality. John-Boy on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 5:50 pm: I think the replicators having a programing capablity makes more sense than the thought of the Cardassians visting Earth years ago just to get the recipe for coffee! :) #''Cybermortis on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 12:52 pm:'' How can one type a message into a PADD, as O'Brian attempts to do, when there is no keyboard? Touchscreen? # Right, so you manage to engineer a complex virus that can infect any and every species on the station...Why wouldn't you go that extra mile and make sure that it would only affect Cardassians, instead of something that could wipe out your own species? If it affects everyone then all it would take is one infected person landing on Bajor to infect the entire population - and DS9 was originally in orbit of Bajor so that is very likely to have happened. If this virus had effected only Cardassians then you'd have a chance of wiping out the occupying force AND having the station intact at the end of it to defend your newly liberated world. (Of course, if it affected only Cardassions Garak would have been the only one infected). Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 8:05 pm: Viruses mutate. Even if they made it only infect the Cardies, there's a good chance it would have mutated and killed everyone (like what happened with that one species). =Sources= Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine